z1d.3xlarge

Analysis

The z1d.3xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the z1d series with 12 vCPUs and 96 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Platinum 8151 (up to 4 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Nothing else with 12 vCPUs and similar memory is cheaper: among 4 current same-shape types it has the lowest on-demand price.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of Tokyo saves $180 a month per instance: $1.12/hour against $1.36/hour, a 22% spread. It is not offered in Canada Central and São Paulo, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

On demand it costs $1.12/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $815 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 70th percentile per vCPU ($0.0930 per vCPU-hour) and the 86th percentile per GiB ($0.0116 per GiB-hour).

It has local instance storage (1 x 450 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: Up to 10 Gigabit.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.7030/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.4600/hour, 59% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 49% to the bill at $1.67/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.